Claim: U.S. active duty military deaths were higher during the administration of President Clinton than during the administration of George W. Bush.

Status:False.

Example:[Collected via e-mail, January 2008]

Surprise, Surprise (not really)

These are some rather eye-opening facts.

Since the start of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sacrifice has been enormous. In the time period from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 through today, we have lost over 3,000 military personnel to enemy action and accidents.

As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the following statistics: The annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2006:

Do these figures mean that the loss from the two latest conflicts in the middle East are LESS than the loss of military personnel during Mr. Clinton's presidency; when America wasn't even involved in a war? And, I was even more confused; when I read that in 1980, during the reign of President (Nobel Peace Prize winner) Jimmy Carter, there were 2,392 US military fatalities!

These figures indicate that many members of our Media and our Politicians will pick and choose. They present only those "facts" which support their agenda-driven reporting. Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth? Where do so many of them get their marching-orders for their agenda?

(These statistics are published by Congressional Research Service, and they may be confirmed by anyone at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf )

Origins: What a muddle one can make of statistics.

The item quoted above attempts to demonstrate that — despite the criticism of President George W.

Bush for involving the U.S. in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — U.S. active duty military deaths were actually significantly higher during the administration of his predecessor, President Bill Clinton. However, the proffered list of statistics is seriously flawed, as it grossly exaggerates the yearly loss figures for years corresponding to the presidency of Bill Clinton and under reports them for the years corresponding to the presidency of George W. Bush.

The numbers reproduced in this piece were taken from a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on American War and Military Operations Casualties, using Table 4 on page 10, that presents statistics for U.S. active duty military deaths for the period 1980-2006.(Table 5, which separates combat/operational losses from deaths due to other causes — accident, homicide, illness, suicide — would have been a better source, but since the item quoted above used Table 4 to document its claim, so do we here.)

We find the following totals in that CRS report:

Year

President

Deaths

Total during presidency

1980

Jimmy Carter

2,392

N/A

1981

Ronald Reagan

2,380

1982

Ronald Reagan

2,319

1983

Ronald Reagan

2,465

1984

Ronald Reagan

1,999

1985

Ronald Reagan

2,252

1986

Ronald Reagan

1,984

1987

Ronald Reagan

1,983

1988

Ronald Reagan

1,819

17,201

1989

George H.W. Bush

1,636

1990

George H.W. Bush

1,507

1991

George H.W. Bush

1,787

1992

George H.W. Bush

1,293

6,223

1993

Bill Clinton

1,213

1994

Bill Clinton

1,075

1995

Bill Clinton

1,040

1996

Bill Clinton

974

1997

Bill Clinton

817

1998

Bill Clinton

827

1999

Bill Clinton

796

2000

Bill Clinton

758

7,500

2001

George W. Bush

891

2002

George W. Bush

999

2003

George W. Bush

1,228

2004

George W. Bush

1,874

2005

George W. Bush

1,942

2006

George W. Bush

1,858

8,792

Even though the CRS table does not include loss figures for the last two years of George W. Bush's presidency, the total number of U.S. military losses that have occurred during his administration is already significantly higher than the equivalent figure for Bill Clinton's presidency (8,792 vs. 7,500). When active duty deaths for 2007 and 2008 are factored in (the Pentagon has not yet released figures for these two years, but the U.S. suffered 1,014 war deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007 and at least another 100 so far in 2008), the discrepancy is even greater.

When we consider all the information in this table, we also find that the number of active duty losses during the Clinton presidency was less than half the number that occurred during the Reagan presidency, and only about 20% higher than the number that occurred during the George H.W. Bush presidency (even though Clinton served as president for twice as long as the elder Bush).